ABLE's CRoPs Tiles

Our Big Ideas: CRoPs Tiles

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The Big Ideas of ABLE

In each installment of the “Our Big Ideas” series, we take a look at one of the cornerstones of the CRM for CPAs. We discuss what the feature is, why it’s important, and how to use it best.

Today, we’ll be examining ABLE’s CRoPs Tiles. Check out the video below to hear ABLE CEO Jeff Pawlow’s take, or scroll down for a summary of what Jeff has to say:

 

What’s up with the 36 CRoPs Tiles?

This is a question we hear a lot. Jeff explains that, “there’s a method to the madness.” It’s all rooted in helping accounting practitioners to “do small well.” We give each ABLE user a particular number of client, referral, and prospect tiles, and encourage them to be strategic about using them.

 

What are the best practices for my CRoPs tiles?

Client Tiles

First, to demonstrate how to use client tiles well, Jeff gives the following example:

“At The Growth Partnership, every year, at the end of the year, we run a report that shows all of our clients by billing, sorted from high to low. And what we do is we start at the top of that report, and we start adding clients together until we get to 80% of our revenue, and then we draw a line. And what we do is we say that everybody above that line needs to be assigned to somebody’s tiles. So one of our partners or managers has one of those clients or more assigned on their 12 client tiles.”

What we’ve found is that, for the average practitioner, focusing on your 12 largest clients represents at least 50% of your practice. Normally, we see it trending between 70 to 90 percent of your practice. Now, it’s not that all clients aren’t important—but they certainly aren’t created equal. Knowing this, ABLE allows you to focus on those handful of relationships that really make all the difference.

 

Referral Tiles

Next up, the same method plays out on the referral standpoint. Say you are connected with 500 people on LinkedIn. That’s great, but, if we’re honest, you probably wouldn’t know most of those folks if you ran into them at the supermarket. ABLE limits you to 10 referral tiles because this forces you to determine which of your referral relationships are the most productive.

In order for a referral relationship to work, some sort of quid pro quo must exist—that is, the exchange of referrals is necessary. That’s why ABLE allows users to track both the inbound and the outbound referrals with a particular individual or their company.

Make sure you take the time to carefully assess your referrals and choose the contacts for your 10 tiles. These are your high-performing referral relationships. If you double down on them, they will continue to produce over time.

 

Prospect Tiles

Lastly, let’s take a look at prospect tiles. ABLE allows each user to have 14 prospects on their tiles. Here’s what Jeff has to say:

“If you’re like me, you’re going to do a ton of new business this year with firms that aren’t on your prospect tiles—that’s to be expected. But the firms that I have on my prospect tiles are the firms that look an awful lot like my very best clients.”

Your prospect tiles should be filled with contacts whose conversion to clients would be cause for celebration. Landing one of these would be a big deal.

 

ABLE’s CRoPs Tiles System

In a nutshell, at ABLE we developed the CRoPs tiles method because it forces you to identify:

  • Your 12 most important client relationships,
  • The 10 referral relationships that are most dynamic for you, and
  • Your 14 most coveted prospects.

“That’s the magic of doing small well, and that’s the power of ABLE!”

Ready to learn more about ABLE’s CRoPs tiles system? Sign up for a free demo today!